MySQL chooses the table character set and collation in the
following manner:

If both CHARACTER SET
charset_name and
COLLATE
collation_name are
specified, character set
charset_name and collation
collation_name are used.

If CHARACTER SET
charset_name is
specified without COLLATE, character set
charset_name and its default
collation are used. To see the default collation for each
character set, use the SHOW CHARACTER
SET statement.

If COLLATE
collation_name is
specified without CHARACTER SET, the
character set associated with
collation_name and collation
collation_name are used.

Otherwise (neither CHARACTER SET nor
COLLATE is specified), the database
character set and collation are used.

The table character set and collation are used as default values
for column definitions if the column character set and collation
are not specified in individual column definitions. The table
character set and collation are MySQL extensions; there are no
such things in standard SQL.